Former DOJ Lawyer: ‘People Are Going To Jail’ Over Russian Collusion Investigation

In a Sunday interview with the American edition of the UK-based Independent, a prosecutor from Bill Clinton’s Department of Justice weighed in on the investigation into the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia in the 2016 election. The matter-of-fact description of that case now fits. There is no longer any question that there was collusion. The only question at this point is who knew about it and when.

Harry Litman, who before he served in the DOJ was a law clerk for SCOTUS luminaries Thurgood Marshall and Anthony Kennedy is currently dividing his time between teaching law at UCLA and his private practice. He was confirmed by the Senate as US Attorney for Western Pennsylvania. This guy personally showed up in court for the cases his office took. I guess what I’m getting at with all these details you don’t really care about is that he knows the law. So it takes on a little more meaning when he says,

It’s a really serious investigation, and there are people that are going to go to jail. The whole atmosphere in the White House has to be paranoid.

We’ve gone from scoffing denials of even contact with Russians to confirmed meetings that Trump has tried to downplay. First, it was a “nothing” meeting Trump Junior had with a Kremlin lawyer. Then it came out — and read every word of this sentence — that Don, Jr. knew everything in advance of the meeting, and actively sought to damage Hillary Clinton with information coming directly from the Russian government.

Litman described potential cooperation from defendants — maybe some in the Trump camp will “roll” on the more guilty:

I know the statutes…the progress of the investigation…the sense of what’s going on in the FBI. I think there will be people going to jail. Of course, going to jail is a great source of leverage to make people cooperate. There may already be people cooperating. That’s how the FBI will pursue this investigation, is to try and put the screws to people.

The kicker is, it may not even be Junior who goes to jail for this. After all, he wasn’t technically a campaign representative. The two guys who came with him were, though. I think both Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort have every reason to fear going to prison. It would be even better to watch the boss go first.

Andrew hates long walks on the beach, glitter, and men's rights activists. He can usually be found with his long-suffering wife, who can usually be found asking him to please not order onions on that burger, babe.